White House aides were caught by surprise when President Trump announced that he would not pay his respects to civil rights leader and longtime Georgia Democratic lawmaker Rep. John Lewis, who was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol.
“I won’t be going, no,” Trump told reporters on Monday, putting to rest early discussions of a possible visit Tuesday, sources told the Associated Press.
The two had feuded publicly, and Lewis, who died on July 17, said after Trump was elected that he did not view him as “a legitimate president.”
Trump acknowledged Lewis’s death with a brief tweet 14 hours after it was announced.
“Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing,” Trump wrote. “Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.”
On Wednesday, as Trump arrived at Andrews Air Force Base for his departure to Texas, the Air Force jet directly ahead was set to carry Lewis’s body to Georgia for his funeral. The president did not appear to acknowledge Lewis’s plane.
Despite the acrimony, staffers on Monday were taken aback.
Instead, the White House sent Vice President Mike Pence, a former House member, who had a personal relationship with Lewis. Pence said in a statement marking Lewis’s death that the congressman’s “selflessness and conviction rendered our nation into a more perfect union.”
Lewis “was a great man whose courage and decades of public service changed America forever, and he will be deeply missed,” Pence wrote, calling him “an icon of the civil rights movement” and “a colleague and a friend.”
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a former congressman, also attended.
